Sea Elf
The Elves who dwell beneath the waves, and live in the ocean's depths
Ability Scores: (+2 Strength, +2 Constitution, +2 Charisma, -2 Dexterity, -2 Wisdom): Sea Elves are creatures born and bred into a land of conflict and strife, and are naturally strong, hardy, and personable, but lack the nimbleness of body and mind most of their Elven Kin have. Type: Sea Elves are Humanoids with the Elf and Aquatic subtypes. As such, they gain breathe perfectly in both air and water as if they had the Waterbreathing and Amphibious Special Qualities or Universal Monster Rules. Size: Sea Elves are Medium Sized Creatures. Speed: Sea Elves have a base land speed of 20 feet, and a Swim speed of 50ft. Senses: Sea Elves can see twice as far as humans in conditions of low-light, and have Darkvision out to 60ft. Languages: Sea Elves begin play speaking the Regional Language(See Languages of Zheng-Kitar) that reflects their origins, and Aquan. A Sea Elf with high INT can choose from the following languages:(Aklo, Old Elven, Elderspeech, Sylvan, Common, Aboleth, Baltairi, and Necril) Yezhiha's Favored: Sea Elves consider themselves Children of the Ocean itself, and this is patently obvious when they go onto land. When on land or out of water where their base land speed would be used, each day they are out of water their swim speed automatically converts into a base land speed with a rate of 10ft per day, until the base land speed reaches 50ft and swim speed drops to 20ft. This also works in reverse when they enter the water, until Swim reaches 50ft and Base land reaches 20ft. Elven Immunities: Sea Elves are immune to magic sleep effects and gain a +2 racial saving throw bonus against enchantment spells and effects. Sea Elven Magic: Sea Elves have potent magic that lingers longer than others, and all spells with the [Water] or [Cold] descriptors gain twice the range per level as normal(10ft/Level becomes 20ft/level), and the duration lasts for a number of additional rounds equal to (1/2 CONMOD, Minimum 1). If one or neither of these rules apply to a given spell(Such as Cone of Cold), you can instead increase the DC of the saving throw of the spell by 2. Forgotten Pacts: Sea Elves are the last living direct descendants of the Sapphire Elves, and are now one of the only races with examples of their legendary technology and how to operate it. Sea Elves gain a racial +2 bonus on Knowledge History and Engineering, and one is always a class skill for them. Scaly Skin: Sea Elves have gorgeously beautiful scales dotting their skin, and these scales also grant them a +2 natural armor bonus. Underwater Warriors: Sea Elves most commonly live in the most dangerous conditions beneath the waves, and quite commonly engage with horrendously massive sea creatures for survival. They gain +6 to their CMD when fully submerged in water, which decreases to +4 on land thanks to their slimy, wet skin. Sea Elves take no penalties from Underwater Combat and can fight as well as they can on land. Seafriend: Sea Elves are natural allies to the creatures that dwell within the oceans of the world, and are always treated as being under the effects of a Speak to Animals spell, but only for the purposes of talking to Aquatic creatures. They also gain the ability to cast Hydraulic Push once per day. Vocal Harmonics: Sea Elves have notoriously beautiful voices, and they gain a Racial +2 bonus on Perform(Sing) checks, which is always a class skill for them. They add +1 to the DC of language-dependant effects they cast. Weapon Familiarity: Sea Elves are always proficient with Tridents, Harpoons, and Nets, and treat any weapon with 'Sea Elf' or 'Sea Elven' in its name as a martial weapon.
Basic Information
Anatomy
Sea Elves possess an anatomy that is, for the most part, wholly identical to other elves and other surface dwelling races...with two arms, two legs, a head atop their torso and all the normal internals, they are mostly similar to other humanoids except in two key ways.
Firstly, the anatomy of a Sea Elf is a great deal more durable than those of other races. As a result of having lived in such extreme, high pressure environments as the bottom of the ocean for such a massive period of time, Sea Elven bodies have long since adapted and their bones have become much thicker and capable of withstanding the immense force of the bottom of the ocean...likewise, their muscles and bodies have become much stronger to offest the resistance one meets moving underwater.
Secondly, Sea Elves possess a unique additional bodily system they commonly refer to as the "Vacua System", a complicated series of organic tubes that run through their bodies and brains, linking into their other bodily systems to allow for rapid equalization between internal and external pressures and the rapid release of built-up oxygen and pressure inside the body to allow for them to move around the ocean floor to the surface rapidly. As such, Sea Elves are immune to the bends for the most part and can move between different environments of drastically different pressures with little hindrance.
Biological Traits
Sea Elves' skin and scales range in color wildly, but are often bright and glittering colors ranging from light blue to dark indigo to violet and even Rainbow, or Multicolored. Adult males are about 6.4 feet tall and weigh around 240 pounds. Females are often just as tall, but a bit lighter. Some Sea elves can even reach heights of up to 8 or 9 feet, and with their massive coral and chitin plate armor and in full battle dress they can weigh up to 340 pounds—they are sometimes so bedecked in thick overlapping plate armor and with weapons and gear that they often can only get around thanks to their deft swim speeds. They tend toward bright and vibrant coloration, with skin and scales of light or bright blue, glittering violet, or shining gold. They have dark hair—black, brown, or dark purple—but richly colored eyes, which are usually gray, violet or blue.
Genetics and Reproduction
Sea Elves, unlike other Elves, lack the traditional Elven low sex drive that often limits their kind from reproducing heavily or creating many children. As a result of their dangerous environment which sees them so often die to monsters and sea conditions and sea life than old age, they are much more fertile and capable of having children to replace all of their number which die each day, with Sex Drives more akin to those of Humans to allow them to keep their numbers up to match those that die in their constant violence and wars.
Sea Elves, like most all elves, simply do not conceive in the same way as other races do - for a Sea Elf to come down with child, they have to make a conscious decision to do so and ingest a special natural and herbal remedial concoction designed to stimulate their bodies to allow for reliable conception. So when the times demand it or when they feel the need, Elves gather together with their chosen mates and decide to have children, but otherwise they are mostly incapable of having children otherwise...however, this also explains the origins of Half-Elves, as many Elves often fancy relationships with humans but rarely stop to consider the consequences of an unplanned spontaneous pregnancy without the influence of their herbal concoctions...without them, a full elf cannot be born and a half-elf is the result.
The females of the race carry their children within them after being impregnated for a period that can range from anywhere between 7-16 months, after which they give birth to the children they carry...during this time, they are not overly hindered by the children they carry within them thanks to an advanced internal structure to alleviate the pressure of pregnancy to allow them to continue fighting even while pregnant.
Growth Rate & Stages
Sea Elves grow rapidly until they hit 25 years of age, after which time they are considered adults...an incredibly fast growth period for an elf, attributed to their unique anatomy and dangerous environment. They hit middle age around 500 years, become old at 750, and grow venerable and die some decades later at 1000 years of age.
Ecology and Habitats
Sea Elves are exclusively found within the deep oceans of the world, though some can be found in shallower waters as well. They most establish a sort of harmony with their local environment as is typical for elves, but they often firmly establish themselves as the head of the local ecology, beating everything else into submission and then contenting themselves to supervise a sort of harmony in their environment as its lords.
Dietary Needs and Habits
Sea Elves are omnivores, and can and have no qualms eating anything so long as it is edible. With incredibly powerful stomachs on par with giants, they can extract nutrients from even the most inedible foods such as moss and even small rocks.
Biological Cycle
Sea Elves outwardly show no signs of aging, much like Cloud Elves, although for wholly different reasons. Where as their lofty kin do so to maintain their beauty, the Sea Elves do so to retain their dignity and grace as a warrior right up until the end.
Additional Information
Social Structure
Sea Elves are inclined to follow a highly rigid and militaristic social structure, one often based around a military chain of command. With one "General" leading a Sea Elven colony, this General operates with a pair of Lieutenants who each govern a host of subordinates, all the way down to the rank and file soldiers in the colony...there are almost never true "civilians" in a Sea Elven society, and all are considered warriors or soldiers, though some may specialize in healing or other things rather than frontline combat.
Facial characteristics
Sea Elves have sharp, angular faces and harsh features as brutal as they themselves are.
Sea Elven 'Purebloods' tend to have facial tentacles, similar to octopi and squids, that dangle from their lower face and jaw - these tentacles can range from simple six-inch tendrils to large one or two foot long tentacles as thick as human arms - their size and shape can vary, but these rubbery, scaly tendrils are proof of Sapphire Elven heritage and 'Pureblood' status.
Geographic Origin and Distribution
Sea Elves are found exclusively beneath the surface of the ocean and underwater, but beneath the water's surface they can be found in a myriad of underwater environments, from dwelling near and within Lava Vents to the blackest and deepest underwater trenches to even the seafloor, or near the surface.
Average Intelligence
Sea Elves are of average intelligence, but are highly personable and strong. They are not very wise.
Perception and Sensory Capabilities
Sea Elves possess eyes adapted to the pitch black environments of the bottom of the ocean, and as such their eyes are innately much more advanced than those of other races...they can see in the dark excellently, and can see much further in low light than the likes of other surface dwelling races can.
Civilization and Culture
Naming Traditions
Sea Elves tend towards names with a Latin or Greek bent to them, preferably names that are short and easy to pronounce on the field of battle.
Beauty Ideals
Sea Elves find beauty in function alone. A building built as a functioning fortress with a rigid adherence to design and defense is a beautiful thing to them, and they are no different when examining sentient creatures. A creature who possesses a strong work ethic and "serves their purpose" elegantly and well is immensely beautiful to a Sea Elf, as they cannot fathom something as beautiful if it exists purely for form, lacks a function, or is made with form in mind over function.
Gender Ideals
Sea Elves do not often distinguish between genders, and the ideal Sea Elf is one that can serve well both as a soldier and as a member of one's colony or township, and one who possesses a variety of skills that provide benefit to the whole of society in some way.
Courtship Ideals
Sea Elves often lack a concept of Courtship, as marriages and pairings in a Sea Elven colony are often done in an arranged fashion, and done with careful thought given to the children such a coupling would produce. Marriages are arranged between two beings who would produce healthy and strong children, and often little thought is given to anything else. The only luxury any Sea Elf has in courtship is fighting with their partner to establish dominance in the relationship.
Common Dress Code
Sea Elves dress entirely with function and defense in mind, and are almost never seen wearing anything that isn't armor-plated or designed to defend themselves. On the incredibly rare occasion they wear something more formal, they analyze such things from a purely logical standpoint and arrange themselves in whatever way would please or be most appealing to those who see them.
Common Taboos
Sea Elves treat excessive individualism as extremely Taboo...someone who works only to further themselves is seen as irregular and heretical, and while Sea Elves often venture outside their colonies on adventures to see the world and the surface, it is done so with thought to the whole, to accomplish some central quest or objective.
Genetic Ancestor(s)
Lifespan
1000 Years
Conservation Status
Sea Elves are almost never seen by the races that dwell upon the surface, but that is not because they are not plentiful. They are indeed one of the most numerous breeds of Elf in existence - they simply dwell within the depths of the ocean and rarely have occasion to travel so far to the surface.
Average Height
4.9ft - 7.8ft (1.5 - 2.4 Meters)
Average Weight
175 - 270 pounds (79.3kg - 122.4kg)
Average Physique
Sea Elves are perhaps the only other breed of Elves besides the Desert Elves who possess bodies of superb muscle and fitness, often incredibly lean and devoid of fat and focused almost entirely on combat and physical activity...but even compared to their Desert-Dwelling brothers, they are far superior to them in natural physique. They are often muscular, fit, and chiseled - their bodies honed and tempered over eons of natural selection and evolution to be the vessels of the perfect warriors.
With overlapping and often gorgeously colored and patterned but durable scales covering their bodies and skin to protect them, not an ounce of a Sea Elves' body is wasteful or of no purpose, and their metabolisms are so hyperactive and powerful that they can almost never become fat or enlarged. Their bodies are the epitome of a beautiful form melded perfectly with the excellence of a perfect functioning body, and they are the perfect balance of bulky muscle and leanness in the physical form...naturally, this physique was one born entirely out of living in an environment where weakness or a lesser body would equal nothing but a quick and painful death.
Body Tint, Colouring and Marking
Sea Elves tend towards bright and vibrant coloration, with skin and scales of light or bright blue, glittering violet, or shining gold though they tend to lean towards Oceanic Colors. They have dark hair—black, brown, or dark purple—but richly colored eyes, which are usually gray, violet or blue.
Sea Elven 'Purebloods' have skin much more bluish in coloration - from bright sapphire, dark azure, to a bluish purple and anywhere in between.
Related Myths
Related Materials
Last of the Sapphire Elves
Though the Sapphire Elves and all races on Zheng-Kitar were wiped out to extinction or near-extinction during the end of the Age of Sapphires some 4,500+ years ago, not all Sapphire Elves nor their floating Sapphire Citadels were obliterated and exterminated - many crashed into the world's oceans and were in time lost beneath the ocean currents, both to oceanic decay, erosion, and the drifting oceanic currents...and though their numbers were too small in these sunken cities to reclaim their cities or restore their population, some Sapphire Elves did survive their people's destruction, hidden from the Yema by the Spirit King of Water, Yezhiha. Though in time as the eons passed these remnants began to devolve and go feral, their cities lost to time and erosion beneath the waves, they were eventually discovered by the High Lamia sent to Zheng-Kitar by the High Lamia Queen, Loscivia Aenai, many thousands of years ago - and led by the Lamia God-Queen Kyra and her forces before they were redeemed, these Sapphire Remnants - having begun the process of devolution into Sea Elves as they adapted and 'went native' to their new homes, were found, captured, and their devolution sped up at the hands and in the stomachs of the High Lamia into a breed of Elf more suited for life on the seafloor - the Sea Elves, created and assisted so they might become allies to the High Lamia's cause on Zheng-Kitar. Literally descendants from the last of the Sapphire Elves thousands of years ago, the Sea Elves have since exploded in population and have formed from many different sources, but this - the ancestral Sea Elves, the first ones - trace their lineage back to the Sapphire Elves themselves, though they may now come from High Elves who adapt to the oceans, and other similar sources. This has led to the formation of the notion of 'Purebloods' in Sea Elven Society - those who trace their lineage back to these original Sapphire Elves, and the non-purebloods who come from other sources such as High Elves. This connection has meant they are not only still close allies of the God-Queen and the Lamia, but that they retain possibly the best and most well-preserved examples of Sapphire Elven culture and technology...and as such, Sea Elven Technomancers are legendarily skilled and well-known for their craft, though all but the smallest and most miniscule examples of their ancestors culture and tech has been lost to them.
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